


I Just Want You in My Arms

by HolleringHawk65



Series: Always a Girl Damian [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dami becomes a ballerina, F/M, always a girl Damian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolleringHawk65/pseuds/HolleringHawk65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's bad to run away from your problems, but that doesn't stop Dami.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Just Want You in My Arms

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure if there was anything like, super triggering in this to be tagged, but there is violence so... yeah, enjoy!

It was different, when Dami up and left in the middle of the night, for Bruce, then with any of his other children. Maybe because they had a plan. Maybe because he had spent more time with them. Maybe because he knew they’d come back.

He had wanted all of his sources on finding her. It couldn’t be too hard--she was one girl. She’d been home for dinner last night. She’d gone on patrol. Tops, she had been gone for eight hours.

Alfred had said no.

The criminals had never known the Dark Knight to be so painful before.

* * *

 

Dick was more than distraught. Dami had been his Robin, his little sister, somebody he could dote on.

And then she was gone, not even a goodbye, just an email that told him that she was going to be fine, that she’d be careful, that maybe she’d be back for Christmas.

(It was January).

* * *

 

All Jason got was five words written on a napkin, left cryptically on his counter.

_Don't come looking for me._

* * *

 

She joined a ballet company in France.

She had thought about going to her mother, thought about how insignificant her problems would seem to Talia-- _I don't think he really loves me. I think that you broke him. I think that I'm broken too, because of you. Are you happy now?_

So here she was, where the only cape community activity was an appearance from Hawk and Dove a week ago.

And she had to admit, using her training for art instead of war, and getting _applauded_ , was pretty nice.

* * *

 

Kori liked to think of Jason’s sexuality as ups and downs. Roy had told her that the word was fluid, but she couldn’t think of it like water, so she thought of it as a roller coaster.

For instance, right now it was up, as he rested his forehead against hers. She ran her fingers through his hair, knowing that his eyes were closed because he was thinking of someone else. Someone smaller than herself, with electric blue eyes and curly black hair.

She didn’t resent Dami. No, she adored the girl as much as the family did. It was the fact that she had left without warning, when Jason was halfway around the world with herself and Roy, and he still loved her.

Still muttered _her_ name as he sank against her, hands resting on her hips.

Kori could understand it, didn’t judge him as he fell asleep in her arms, staying true to what the nineteen year old had asked of him-- _Don’t come looking for me_ \--and filling the ache in his heart with her. She cared for Jason--how couldn’t she? They were part of a team together--and she wanted him to be happy. She had asked Roy if maybe _they_ should look for Dami, but he’d shook his head. He’d told her not to and that, as she already knew, inter-Bat issues always resolved themselves.

It couldn’t happen fast enough.

* * *

 

Clark, of course, recognized the soloist as she took the stage. He found it hard to believe that the girl who used to swing around Gotham in a horrendous bright yellow cape was now taking the stage in a beautiful pale yellow tutu.

She seemed to look right at him, even if it was only for a second, as she came out of her arabesque, before moving to build momentum for a set of leaps.

He liked to think he clapped the most for her; the ballerina everyone else knew as Ekaterina Burov but he knew the girl that was Damian Wayne.

The next day he was sitting at his desk when the phone rang. Lois picked it up, answering it as she typically does, before extending it to Clark. “It’s a girl,” she said with a smile. He rolled his eyes before taking it from her.

“Clark Kent, Daily Planet,” he told whoever it was on the other end of the line as he finished a sentence in the article he was typing up.

“Mr. Kent,” a smooth Russian accent repeated on the other end. “My name is Ekaterina Burov,” and he wanted to laugh at the fact that she was so good at this when Russian was Bruce’s worse language. It had to be the League training.

“Ms. Burov!” and Lois snorted at her desk, shooting him a look that said _of course a ballerina would call you_ , “How can I help you?”

“I was hoping for lunch,” she admitted, and for a second, he thought that he could hear her voice threaten to break. "Perhaps off the record?"

He smiled. "We can do that." They set up a time and a place for later that day before hanging up.

"An exclusive?" Lois asked after a minute.

"Just lunch."

"But you're," she gestured. "Old."

It took him a second to figure out the implication--she thought that it was a date. Between him and a nineteen year old, who just happened to be one of his closest friend's daughter. Not that she was operating as that, but he would always think of Damian as Bruce's daughter, no matter what names she used.

But instead of expressing his horror, or letting out something else that he’d been trying to keep from her, he snorted. “Maybe I seem interesting to her.”

She gave him a dubious look but shrugged. “Alright, Smallville.”

* * *

 

They made idle chitchat at the cafe, tucked away in the corner but staying away from anything related to her old life. Afterwards, she casually mentioned wanting to see where such an upstanding citizen lived and he decided to indulge her.

They kept the apartment clean, but it was still small. She sat down on the couch, looking around, as she pulled her hair out of her bun as sighed. When she spoke, the Russian accent was gone. “I think that Alfred started lying to me about how everyone is.”

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that. He knew that Bruce was getting out of Gotham less and less frequently, while Tim was getting away more. Dick was on the down low while Jason and his team were doing everything he could to let people know what they were doing. Some people thought that they were more effective than the Justice League.

He didn’t know much about the other girls except they were fine or Dick would ask him to keep an eye on Bruce, like he would if something was wrong with Alfred.

“Everyone’s fine,” he assured her.

She was silent for a moment as she smoothed out her skirt. “... Is that because everyone is better when I’m not around?”

“ _Damian Martha Wayne_ ,” he growled. “Everyone _misses_ you. Above all, they want you to come home.”

She shot up and ran into the bathroom. He could hear her crying on the other side, but he didn’t do anything to help her. She, in all likelihood, probably wouldn’t want to anyone.

He milled around, cleaned up a little more, waited for her to come out. In the time that he was waiting, the door opened, and Hal slipped in, looking exhausted. He paused and the two stared at each other for a moment.

“I didn’t think that you would be home so soon,” Clark said after a moment.

“The same could be said about you. Did something happen at the Planet?” he talked as he walked across the living room, to the bathroom and he opened the door, of course, not thinking that there would be anyone in there, and he let out a very undignified scream when he saw Dami. He shut the door and looked at Clark, his chest heaving. “Why is there a mini-Bruce in our bathroom?”

Clark shrugged. “They drop in.”

“I thought that she was…” he gestured with his hands. “Poof.”

“She un-poofed herself this morning. To me, at least.”

“Great going, Clark. Look, if Spooky decides to bring in a window, remember to get a check. I’m going to go sleep off another civil war.”

“Pizza later?” he asked as Hal trudged off towards his bedroom.

“Sure. But no weird toppings, alright?”

“Pineapple. Got it.”

Hal laughed as he shut the door behind him. A moment later, the bathroom door opened and Dami stepped out.

“Are you and him…”

“Dating? No. We can’t do that to each other.”

She raised an eyebrow.

He didn’t want to talk about it.

“Have you talked to Jason?” He knew that she’d talked to everyone else, at some point. Cryptically, in typical Bat fashion. But, he wasn’t close to Jason and neither was Bruce, so he had no idea.

She looked down. “I don't think we should do that to each other.”

* * *

 

Jason wheezed. “Roy, you should-”

“ _Jason, we’re not leaving you_ ,” he said as he adjusted how he was supporting Jason. “Not now, not ever.”

Something crashed behind them. The impact shook the ground, causing Jason to lose his footing. He lurched forward and would have fallen flat on his face if Kori hadn’t swooped in and caught him.

“We have to retreat,” she said simply. Jason was practically curling up in her arms like a kitten. “We need to get him to help.”

There was only one place that Roy could think of that would equipped with what Jason would need and wouldn’t arrest them (hopefully).

Jason might kill him if he makes it.

And so that how they looked as they landed in the back of the Manor, except Roy had been on Kori’s back. She was hovering above the ground as he ran ahead, somehow getting to the kitchen door before she did.

“Alfred! Bruce! Dick! Tim! Is anyone here?” He could probably find an entrance to the Batcave, but he wasn’t sure where anything was. He couldn’t have his best friend bleed out in front of him. Anything but this.

The butler appeared and seemed to quickly assess the situation--Jason, in Kori’s arm, face uncovered, domino barely on, his clothes half gone, revealing raw flesh. Kori’s hair looked singed and Roy could tell that he had some burns on himself, not that that mattered too much. He’d live.

“Follow me,” Alfred said, and they would never disobey the older man.

* * *

 

Dami jumped when the phone started ringing.

It was the phone for BatFam emergencies.

The: _end of the world but I won’t call Clark_ emergencies. Or, the: _someone is dying and/or dead._ Or: _Tim’s been kidnapped again and can we really trust Kon and Bart to get him back in one piece?_ Or, maybe it was because Alfred had called her other phone, forgotten in her hotel room, and then called the director and she hadn’t been there, and this was all one big mistake.

Her body was going into machine mode as she answered the phone. “Yes?”

It wasn’t Alfred.

“Damian, you need to come home.”

“Is it Dick?” she blurted out as she got up. Clark’s eyebrow was raised, but he stayed mum. “Father-”

“No, it’s Jason,” was all he said before he hung up.

“I’ll fly you over,” Clark told her.

* * *

 

Alfred had just finished stitching up the worst of Jason’s wounds by the time Dami and Clark touch down in the cave. She ran over to his side, wanting to take back every week of not talking to him. She spewed words until tears clouded her vision and all she could do was grab a hand and squeeze.

* * *

 

Jason woke up hours later. It took him a moment to place where he is and why he might be there and how he got there. He looked over and saw Dami asleep in a chair, her head on the edge of whatever he’s laid out on.

It all came rushing back to him then, why he’s so banged up, and his fingers tighten, one hand around her fingers.

He remembered seeing a head of curly, black hair, the body facing towards the desert sand. And he remembered falling to his knees. He remembered thinking that somehow, Dami had ended up there, and he hadn’t known, and he had let her die. He remembered turning her over, to see if her blue eyes were still open for one last time but they weren’t, and it didn’t matter because this _wasn’t_ Dami, and he remembered the pang of thinking that someone else was going to miss this girl, but then realizing that it didn’t matter because he, himself, was going to have more time with Dami and he could make everything right.

He remembered getting the breath knocked out of him. Remembered the crack of his helmet, but on what, he didn’t know exactly. He remembered Roy pulling him along, dimly remembered Kory holding him. Remembered seeing the Manor’s garden for a brief moment before blacking out again, remembered the smell of antiseptic and Alfred’s methodic stitching.

Dami stirred, as if she could feel the weight of his stare on her, and she smiled up at him, as if she was seeing the sky for the first time in months.

“I love you,” they blurted out at the same time. He would have smiled or laughed if his head wasn’t killing him.

She got up and leaned over him, black hair tickling his skin as she bent down to kiss him. “I’m going to take care of you this time,” she told him as she squeezed one of his hands.

He wouldn’t trade this moment for anything, not even a life where he hadn’t died at 15, hadn’t had one of the few people he cared about shut him _out_ when he came back to life. Wouldn’t trade it for a cure for freaking cancer or world peace because he was selfish and he loved her and he was never going to let anything come in between them.

And then they both felt whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow me on tumblr! It's the same username :)


End file.
